Latin America and the Caribbean Gender Innovation Lab

Jacobus De Hoop (Senior Economist and Team Lead)

Jacobus de Hoop is a senior economist in the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice. Jacob currently leads the Gender Innovation Lab for Latin America and the Caribbean. Before joining the World Bank Group, Jacob worked as a humanitarian policy research manager at UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, was a member of the Transfer Project, worked as a researcher at the International Labour Organization (ILO), and was affiliated with the Paris School of Economics as a Marie Curie Post-Doctoral Fellow. He holds a PhD in economics from the Tinbergen Institute and VU University in Amsterdam.

Lourdes Rodriguez Chamussy (Senior Economist)

Lourdes Rodriguez Chamussy is a senior economist whose work focuses on applied microeconomics, labor markets, political economy of development, and gender. Before joining the World Bank, she worked at the Inter-American Development Bank and the George Washington University. She has published articles on poverty measurement and is the coauthor of the book Cashing in on Education: Women, Childcare, and Prosperity in Latin America and the Caribbean. She holds a Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Javier Romero (Economist)

Javier Romero is an economist in the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice and the Latin America and the Caribbean Gender Innovation Lab. His work focuses on economic development, health, labor, and gender, where he uses experimental and quasi-experimental methods to guide policy making. Javier holds a PhD and MA in economics from Duke University and a BA and Licenciatura in economics from Universidad de Piura.

Paola Buitrago Hernandez (Economist)

Paola Buitrago-Hernandez is an economist at the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank. She works on poverty, labor markets, provision of childcare services, with a special focus on gender equality and women’s economic empowerment. She supports the LACGIL on the regional gender coordination. Before joining the World Bank Group, she worked at Inter-American Development Bank for the Gender and Diversity Division and the Office of Evaluation and Oversight. She has also worked for the government of Colombia, her home country, in the areas of TVET education, school-to-work transition, and early childhood. Paola holds a master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and in Economics from Universidad de los Andes.

Phoebe W. Ishak (Economist)

Phoebe W. Ishak is joining the ELCPV unit as an Extended Term Consultant (ETC) based in Washington DC. She is an applied development economist with research interests in resource economics, gender and labor economics. Her work focuses on the economies of developing countries in Africa, Latin America, and the MENA region. Before joining the World Bank Group, she has held post-doctoral positions at Aix-Marseille School of Economics (AMSE), and Freie Universität Berlin. She holds a PhD degree in Economics from Hamburg Universität, and is a research affiliate at IZA Institute of Labour Economics and a research fellow at Economic Research Form (ERF).

Raquel Melgar Calderon (Consultant)

Raquel Melgar Calderon is a consultant for the Latin America and the Caribbean Gender Innovation Lab (LACGIL). She first joined the LACGIL by being part of the LCR Inclusive Internship Program as a recent Social Policy graduate. Her interests are qualitative research on social protection and gender policy. Previously, she worked at the OECD, where she partnered with the civil society, private, academic, and governmental sectors to disseminate key messages on digitalization, skills and life-long learning, job quality, and social protection in Latin America. She holds a BSc. in International Business from Instituto Politécnico Nacional (Mexico), and an M.A. in Public Policy from Sciences Po Paris (France).